Numerical study of mixed convection heat transfer from a rotating cylinder inside a trapezoidal enclosure

Abstract

This article reports a numerical investigation of mixed convection heat transfer phenomena around an active rotating heated cylinder placed inside a trapezoidal enclosure. The cavity is configured such that top and bottom walls remain thermally insulated while the remaining two sidewalls experience a constant cold temperature. The heated cylinder is located at the centre of the trapezoidal enclosure and undergoes counter clockwise rotation. The numerical solution of various governing equations (i.e. continuity, momentum and energy equations) for the present problem is obtained by using Galerkin finite element method. The present study focused on the influence of the variation of inertia effect of the rotating cylinder as manifested by the parameter, Reynolds number (Re) for various Grashof number (Gr) ranging from 103 to 105 while keeping the Richardson number constant as 1, which essentially represents the case of pure mixed convection. An envision of flow field and thermal field has been made by studying the streamlines, isotherms respectively while for the study of heat transfer characteristics, local and average Nusselt number over the heated cylinder has been considered. The result indicates that both the side wall inclination angle as well as the inertia effect of the rotating cylinder has greater impact on heat transfer characteristics compared to the case of motionless heated cylinder placed in a square cavity.